Arizona attorney general to sue over federal vaccine rules
By BOB CHRISTIE
PHOENIX (AP) — Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich said Thursday he plans to sue to block the Biden administration’s new mandate that large employers require their workers to either be vaccinated for COVID-19 or undergo weekly testing starting in January.
The Republican said the suit challenging the new Occupational Safety and Health Administration regulations targeting employers with 100 or more workers would be filed Friday.
“When faceless government bureaucrats dictate what you must inject into your body, that’s the furthest thing in the world from a safe workplace,” Brnovich said in a statement. “The government doesn’t get to be your nanny, and it’s certainly not your doctor.”
In a background briefing on the new rules Wednesday evening, a senior Biden administration official said they were needed to ensure worker safety.
“A virus that has killed more than 745,000 Americans, with more than 70,000 new cases per day currently, is clearly a health hazard that poses a grave danger to workers,” the official said.
U.S. Rep. Raul Grijalva, a Democrat who represents parts of southern Arizona, called the regulations “welcome news” that will save lives and prevent losses by businesses that experience COVID-19 outbreaks among their workforces,
“With COVID-19 as the new leading cause of death in Arizona, I applaud this effort to mitigate transmission of the virus in the workplace,” Grijalva said in a statement. “Right now, people are uncomfortable risking themselves or their families to be in unsafe working conditions – and that must change.”
The lawsuit is the second filed by Brnovich, who is seeking his party’s 2022 U.S. Senate nomination, over federal vaccine or testing mandates. A suit he filed in September alleged the government was violating the Constitution’s equal protection clause because it is treating citizens differently than people caught crossing the U.S.-Mexico border illegally. Those people are offered vaccines but not required to be inoculated.
A hearing on Brnovich’s request for a preliminary injunction in that case is set for next week.
